2016 Nissan Maxima debuts in New York with 300 hp

The 2016 Nissan Maxima has been unveiled at the ongoing 2015 New York International Auto Show (2015 NYIAS). Nissan’s eight-generation “four-door sports car” will now be offered in five trim levels when it goes on sale in showrooms across the US at the start of the second quarter of this year.

Staying true to its sporting nature, the new Maxima features the latest iteration of the marque’s VQ engine – the 3.5 litre V6 pumps out a total of 300 hp and 353 Nm of torque. The mill is mated to Nissan’s Xtronic CVT, supposedly “performance-oriented” for this application. Fuel consumption is rated at 9.4 km/l and 12.8 km/l for both the city and highway cycles, respectively.

In terms of it aesthetics, the 2016 Nissan Maxima features a front end that’s bound to intimidate a few road users from time to time. The bold, V-Motion front fascia comprises of a stylised front grille which is flanked by “boomerang” LED daytime runnings lights – themselves embedded into the head light assembly.

Elsewhere, two-toned, twin five-spoke 18-inch wheels and a ‘floating roof’ design provides the 2016 Nissan Maxima some visual drama on the side. At the rear, large, angular tail lamps assemblies help add to the car’s visual width while twin exhaust outlets at each end round off the stylistic highlights.

A driver-focused interior layout comes courtesy of the angled centre stack while an eight-inch touchscreen interface featuring the marque’s NissanConnect SM with navigation is present. Connectivity features such as SiriusXM Satellite Radio, SiriusXM Travel Link and Online Search with Google are included. Within the instrument cluster sits a seven-inch Advanced Drive Assist Display interface that is apart of the aforementioned NissanConnect platform.

An “actor” by training, Gregory Sze realised that he has had enough of drama in his life. Following his number one passion (acting was actually number two), he decided to make the jump into the realm of automotive journalism. He appreciates the simple things in life – a simple car with nothing but back-to-basics mechanical engineering and minimal electronics on board.

While the rear-end , the floating roof and the sculptured side profile look quite fantastic, the front-end face is not exactly pretty. It could have been better if the black-coloured portion of the front bumper (why is it some manufacturers are so fond of this type of styling?? It’s just damn ugly) matched the body colour.Shame..

The V-motion grill is ok for SUVs and pickup trucks.. but it seems out of place in an executive sedan like this.

Definitely won’t be popular in Malaysia due to the 3.6L engine, but if they can shoehorn a 2-liter turbocharged engine to keep prices and road tax at a reasonable level, it would probably appeal to a lot of people

What a waste! Nissan should have thrown in their DCT from the GT-R or something. They have Renault too, which has a couple of DCT equipped models. Heck, even a normal auto would have been fantastic.

The CVT doesn’t do the VQ series justice. I had a VQ20DE equipped car in the past, oh god the sound was glorious. Both inside and outside the car, it had that magical growl, so magical it gives leprechauns a run for the money.

Today’s turbocharged cars lose the magical sound, yeah so some of the turbo cars like the VW’s EA888 in the GTi, paired with the DSG make some pretty cool farts, and Porsche’s 3.0 turbo V6 sounds pretty good and smooth too, but nothing beats the sound of a wailing NA engine.

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